Books : Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression

Rating: - Wonderful Book
Bought this for my mother-in-law, and she absolutely loved it. The stories brought back memories of her own childhood. Wish I could give this ten stars for her!

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Rating: - enjoyable
a great read, sort of like an updated Little House for the adult reader. Details about farm life including recipes & the like, but full of antics and stories of family life as well. overall, the author seems too disgruntled with her upbringing and almost makes that the overtone of the book. a fun book though.

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Rating: - Excellent memoir
Little Heathens by Millie Kalish is a wonderful book about the author's life on an Iowa farm in the 1930's. She makes the setting and times come alive and I especially enjoyed getting a glimpse of my parent's generation and what their childhood might have been like.

The values she was taught as a child enabled her to become a member of the armed forces, go to college and become a college professor. Her family offered love and support to its members in times that were very challenging. This proves that it doesn't take a lot of money to become a succesful member of society as an adult.

Some of the remedys for first aid I remember hearing from my parents and their siblings.

It is truly worth your time to buy and read.

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Rating: - Outstanding, and a reminder of what 'builds character'!
My wife borrowed a copy of Little Heathens from our daughter, read it, and said I might like to read it. I did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's very well-written, humorous, heart-warming, and. . .a reminder of how life can be lived, and enjoyed, even in very difficult times. I'm sure it will be especially interesting to those who, like me, grew up in the Depression.

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Rating: - A clear-eyed and unsentimental look at the past
It would be a mistake to read this book through the lens of nostalgia. Certainly the childhood Kalish describes is very appealing, particularly her commentaries on how her family fostered thrift and independence. It's always tempting to think that the past is somehow a better place. However few of us, I suspect, would wish to return to a time when a failed marriage could mark a woman for life (and Kalish is clear about the effect of this on her mother) or when one measure of a woman's worth was the degree of shine on her windowpanes (and Kalish is clear about her disdain for that particular preoccupation). It's also important to remember that this memoir is just one view of the Depression years; Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939), which is based on his firsthand observations of California migrants, tells a very different story. I'm a teacher, and I read this book with a group of high school seniors, for whom the book was a revelation, particularly in its descriptions of how little Kalish's family relied on purchased goods and how much she and her siblings relied on imagination, not expensive sports equipment, in creating their own fun. For them (and for me) the book is interesting not because it evokes a better time and place but because it suggests that life on a Depression-era Iowa farm might teach us a few things relevant to our present circumstances, economic ones included.